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Nuku'alofa, Tonga–While the world is focused on Copenhagen, the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga is getting on with saving with world – by showing what incredible things can be done if only you try.

Tonga is a special place.

Incredibly beautiful, it is spread out over a large section of the South Pacific.

Some of the islands are delicate slivers of lush green, fringed by soft white sand beaches. Others have mountains and waterfalls. There is a simmering island volcano and deserted islets that elsewhere would be festooned with five-star resorts.

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While ideal for tourism, that variation also means problems for energy supply.

Up to now, Tonga, and its population of around 103,000, has relied almost exclusively on imported diesel to run power plants and generators. That has left everything from economic development to the running costs of schools and hospitals very vulnerable to changes in global energy markets.

During the recent huge spike in oil and gas prices, for example, energy prices in Tonga more than doubled. It was a wake-up call.

Tongans are fiercely independent – it's the only unconquered country in the Pacific – and they decided that they didn't want to be beholden to the one thing that seems to keep even the world's largest countries captive: imported energy.

And so, the Prime Minister, Dr. Feleti Vaka'uta Sevele, with the blessing of the King, convened a cabinet subcommittee to look at all renewable energy options available to Tonga. And a target was set for 50 per cent renewable energy in Tonga by 2012.

According to award-winning Tongan journalist Kalafi Maola, in Tonga "problems tend to be solved quite quickly. When we see it, we get it done. Our size helps."

Not satisfied with having one of the most ambitious renewable energy targets on the planet, Tonga also decided to re-evaluate the entire way it does business with funding partners.

For decades, Tonga has been on the receiving end of international aid, but often what is given, and where it goes, is decided by the donors.

For example, $30 million (U.S.) came into the country for solar panels, but that went to people living on outlying islands, while 80 per cent of the population lives in the capital.

Also, it was mostly for lights, which were not a high priority for locals compared to, say refrigeration or communications.

The prime minister declared that he didn't want any more of the sort of aid that resulted in ad hoc fixes that looked only at 20 per cent of the population.

He established a new renewable energy department, headed by a respected Tongan, `Akau'ola.

One of his first orders of business was to reinvent the relationship with aid partners.

"Often, the first thing development partners do when they come here is to tell the government that it is duplicating and wasting resources," `Akau'ola explains.

"But they themselves do exactly that. In order to get around that, we decided to identify a sector, in this case the energy sector, and have all development partners coordinate solutions through one organization, in this case the World Bank."

Those solutions are not limited to a massive rollout of appropriate renewables.

Also being considered are regulatory and institutional changes, and whether Tonga should develop a strategic energy supply, or hedge on energy prices.

In another innovation, the country is going to have an energy poll, in which the population is asked exactly what its energy priorities are.

This rational and groundbreaking approach is being closely watched by other Pacific nations, and the aid partners. It has the potential to completely change the way aid is done around the world.

And the energy sector isn't the only one in which Tonga is leading the way.

The Environment and Climate Change ministry is in the process of conducting one of the world's most comprehensive national assessment of environmental change impacts.

By talking with experts, from scientists to village elders, they are finding evidence of coastal erosion, coral bleaching, saltwater infiltration of groundwater, flooding, and more.

Far from a mere list of ills, the research is being used to coordinate a wide ranging defence against the changes including everything from erecting sea walls to cyclone insurance.

Tonga is not focused on problems, it wants solutions. And the way it is going about finding those solutions holds lessons for us all.

The challenges that Copenhagen is trying to address are complex, interrelated and wide-ranging. Sometimes they seem insurmountable.

But Tonga is showing that with political will, intelligence and a focus on what people really need, big positive change can happen very quickly.

"If we can do this, I'm sure richer countries can," `Akau'ola says.

I hope so. But I'm not sure. Tonga is a special place.

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